


because every mask has a secret

by nolangerardfuck



Category: Football RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 10:50:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,792
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3726004
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nolangerardfuck/pseuds/nolangerardfuck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cesc Fabregas is a temporary tourist, and Iker is a long-time worker at a mountainside cafe—in Tehran.</p>
            </blockquote>





	because every mask has a secret

**Author's Note:**

> how did i turn bella's prompt of "fabsillas bakery au" into this. why do i even—you know what, never mind. short thing, hope you... like it?

Gravel crunches under Cesc’s boots as he treks up the mountain path, his breath rushing out in pants, heart beating loudly in his ears. It’s not quite winter yet, but bitter wind already stings his pink cheeks. He nestles his hands within the pockets of his fur-lined coat and broadens his stride. There aren’t as many people trekking up the mountain this time of year as there would be in spring or summer, but Cesc still makes out a few figures ahead of him, woollen headscarves tucked into their knee-length coats. Cesc is sure they’re the two women who started walking up at the same time as him. They’re weighed down by a mass of clothes, yet they’re ahead of him. He grits his teeth and straightens his back, quickening his pace into a near run. Almost immediately the sharp wind whipping his face makes him regret it, but he keeps at the same speed. He whines and pants. Gradually his protests become louder and more frequent, but stopping would mean admitting defeat, and Cesc Fabregas would much rather suffer with burning muscles.

 

Finally he reaches a familiar sign and pseudo-gate, which leads into a large open space and a small wooden building. A grin stretches across his face, and he enters immediately. The café merges with the natural landscape of the mountainside, trees stretching out from the ground and the rock-face, small streams of water flowing through the ground. With a sweeping glance of the café, he spots an unoccupied bed beside a burning electric heater. Cesc all but runs towards it and falls right onto the carpeted cot, leaning back against the wooden rail bordering the bed. Stretching his legs out with his back to the heater, his eyes slide shut. The scent of saffron tea and crisp, unpolluted air curls around him, and he sighs in relief.

 

                                                                                                                            **********

 

Cesc spends a week exploring Shiraz. Immediately on arrival the city has a different air than Tehran, where he spent the last three weeks. Tehran was a lot like the typical capital city, he thinks—the same buses and cars clogging the streets and causing traffic no matter what time you’re out; people scurrying past you on the streets as if they’re each late to some affair or another; grey smoke clogging the air like a bubbling cauldron of pollution. Still, Cesc is oddly fond of Tehran; the sound of the Quran echoing throughout the streets at prayer time; taxi drivers who perk up at the sound of his accented, broken Farsi and proceed to overcharge him; the scent of mouth-watering kebabs and offers of ‘no, really, be my guest! Take it for free!’ which you weren’t actually supposed to accept, Cesc came to realise after a particularly jarring encounter at a restaurant. Gutters line the streets, so deep that if one were to fall in, they were at risk of getting seriously injured. Sky-high buildings stretch across every inch of the city, leaving no room for the typical suburbia Cesc was used to. Even the most expensive uptown houses were apartments. Murals of war martyrs and green revolutionary slogans are etched on walls throughout the city. There are mosques so beautifully crafted that you’d struggle to believe they weren’t the handiwork of God himself. Every inch of the city seeps into Cesc’s bones, pumps through his veins, and slowly he comes to understand why some travellers come, and never want to leave.

 

In contrast, Shiraz emanates culture and poetry. Every stepping-stone seems to have a story. Walking through the city centre, Cesc pictures the Persian poets of old roaming through these remaining relics of history, the castles and the gardens, and writing about the beauty seeping from the trees, the magnetic eyes of the young Persian boys.

 

Shiraz feels like a city moving slowly, aging like fine wine, a place where Cesc could grow old with poetry burning through his veins like an eternal fire.

 

                                                                                                                             ***********

 

“You’re back.” Cesc recognises the gravelly Spanish voice without opening his eyes. The voice approaches the bed and places something onto the bed with a clink. Cesc’s eyes slide open with a smile.

 

“Iker,” Cesc says, gaze immediately falling onto the rich soup and tea placed beside him, the same he’d been ordering every visit, “you’re still here.” Cesc looks up at Iker, the man leaning up against a tree in front of him with a raised eyebrow.

 

“Of course. Where would I go?” Iker’s beard is significantly longer than when Cesc saw him about a week ago. The man could probably pass for an Iranian, Cesc thinks.

 

“Off to join the Iranian secret police? They’d accept you, with the beard you’ve got going. Or off to Spain?” Cesc is sure the tone of his voice is all too hopeful with that last suggestion, and he averts his gaze.

 

“You’re the tourist here, not me.” Iker crosses his arms in front of his body, eyebrows furrowing. Cesc curses himself mentally for bringing up a subject he knows Iker is uncomfortable with.

 

It must’ve been fate when Cesc decided to explore Tehran’s most famous peak on his second morning in the city. What was it, except fate, which led him to Iker, a young Spanish man fluent in Farsi, the only helper of the mountainside café’s elderly owner? Cesc was always ashamed of his tendency to absentmindedly think aloud in Spanish, but on that occasion it attracted Iker’s attention, so Cesc embraced it. That day he ended up staying at the café way past the ten minutes he originally allocated to resting—he discovered the delectable selection of soups and drinks the café offered, and it was way past noon when he left.

 

Over the course of the three weeks he spent in Tehran, Cesc endured a gruelling trek up the mountain each morning simply to visit the café. He told Iker about his University of Barcelona major, classical archaeology, and Iker talked about himself. Sometimes Cesc wonders why the man opened up to him so easily, spilling his secrets each morning over a cup of saffron tea. Maybe it was Cesc coaxing it out of him, or maybe it’s always easier to expose your secrets to someone temporary like a stranger.

 

Iker’s eyes are endlessly deep, brimming with knowledge and understanding—of concepts unknown, of the world surrounding him, each whisper and echo, of Cesc himself. Though Iker never uses the word ‘genius’ himself, Cesc knows it’s true. Iker speaks of stellar achievements in passing, mentions exam results of 99.5% dismissively. _Oh, yeah, I was student president and captain of the football team, too._ Iker shoots far above all else, yet still gazes at the missed millimetre above him with disappointed eyes. He looks in the mirror and sees his flaws as scars covering a gruesome body. He sees mediocrity in perfection, cracks all over a flawless crystal ball—a flawless crystal ball that he eventually grasps, and hurls to its destruction. Young geniuses always crack and shatter, by their own hand more often than not.

 

This becomes painfully apparent to Cesc the day Iker talks about why he left Madrid for Tehran. A stellar performance in his father’s company— _painfully bland work,_ Cesc thinks, but bland is what makes you rich—and a best friend— _isn’t it always?—_ who was always so much more. The best friend moves to London with a lover one day with no goodbye, and never looks back. Iker’s voice shakes when he says his name— _Sergio—_ and Cesc _understands_. Iker finally shatters, and with the sponsorship of a rich, elderly Iranian—the owner of the café, Cesc realises afterwards—decides to start over in a different world. Cesc never asks him again, remembering the quivering pain in Iker’s voice as he talked about Madrid, and Sergio.

 

                                                                                                                              ***********

 

Cesc walks through the ruins of Persepolis, and sees fire. He sees a castle of chiselled stone stretching across arid land, a mighty representation of the grandest empire on earth. The stone pillars stretch up into the sky, surrounded by magnificently decorated walls. Visitors come from all over the world to pay tribute, witnessing a sight that takes their break away.

 

Cesc sees fire. It burns his nostrils as it tears through the city. The castle is razed to the ground, reduced to crumbling pillars and small pieces of broken stone, once the centre of an empire. The fire smells of sizzling flesh, and it swallows the screams of the castle with it.

 

Cesc walks through Persepolis, and his heart races as he thinks about what it was once, what it once stood for. The kings roaming the halls. Admirers kneeling on the ground, offering gifts if only to witness the glory of the castle, just once. And what it became. If time has no mercy on a whole empire—if castles of stone and gold can crumble into dust—then where does that leave Cesc?

 

                                                                                                                             ***********

 

“I’m leaving tomorrow.” Cesc says, finally. He chews at his bottom lip and looks down at the cooling soup and tea.

 

“It’s over already.” Iker says quietly. Cesc wonders if he meant to say it aloud.

  

“I really liked this place, I mean the café as well as Iran, it was such a great experience and it was so different, but classes start up again soon and—“ Cesc catches himself rambling and stops, sighs, and gets up from the bed. Iker’s lips are pressed into a thin line and his shoulders are stiff with tension. Cesc slips a few bills onto the bed as payment for the untouched food, also pulling out another piece of paper from his pocket.

 

“I know you’ve talked about this, you don’t plan on returning to Spain any time soon— _no, Iker, listen to me_ —I know, but just in case. If you’re ever… tired of running away and decide to come back, here’s my number.” Iker grasps the scrap of paper and stares at it as Cesc buries his hands into his pockets again, cheeks red.

 

“There are two numbers here.” Iker says, and Cesc almost laughs because of course, that’d be the part he zeroed in on.

 

“Yeah, the other one is my mum’s home phone,” Iker’s lips suddenly quirk upwards and Cesc stammers, “in case I change my number or something— _stop laughing, you’re such a dick.”_

 

“Have a good flight, Cesc. Be a good boy, I’ll call your mum and she’ll tell me.” Iker smiles as Cesc scrunches up his nose. And the young boy thinks that maybe—fate isn’t quite done with him yet.

 

Keep walking, though there’s no place to get to.

Don’t try to see through the distances. That’s not for human beings.

Move within, but don’t move the way fear makes you move.

_—Rumi_


End file.
